


Violent Delights

by crossingwinter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe – Modern Setting, Alternate Universe – Western, Alternate Universe – Westworld, F/M, I consider Westworld to be the content warning for this tbh, Violence, but for those unaware of what that might include:, psychological fuckery, threats of sexual assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-07 13:51:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14672412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: Westworld isn't your typical amusement park. Intended for rich vacationers, the futuristic park allows its visitors to live out their most primal fantasies with the robotic "hosts,” no matter how illicit the fantasy.The maze isn’t for me my ass,he thinks.  He looks up, smiling beneath his bandana and his eyes are met with a horrified looking couple.  The man is standing in front of the woman, as though worried that Ben’ll attack them next.He rolls his eyes as he stands up again, cleaning the simulation blood from his knife by rubbing it against his pant leg.“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” he snarls at them.  “This is my fucking vacation.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks to [Megan](http://spacedarcy.tumblr.com) for letting me bounce ideas off her for this one, and [Alexandra](http://politicalmamaduck.tumblr.com) for beta-reading. 
> 
> If you haven’t seen Westworld and think you may want to, I strongly recommend not reading this since I will be spoiling for you what I consider to be one of the better structured plot twists I have seen on modern television. That might not be a deterrent, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. 
> 
> Lastly, you’ll notice the rating is M. That is less for #otpsmut than it is for the larger themes of the piece. I hope that won’t be a deterrent for those of you looking for #otpstuff but take that for what you will.

“Bring yourself back online.”

She opens her eyes. 

She can’t see anything except the face in front of her. 

It’s a familiar face. 

She doesn’t recognize it. 

“Tell us what you think of your world.”

“Some people choose to see the ugliness in this world. The disarray. I choose to see the beauty.”

“Have you ever experienced anything that seems out of the ordinary to your daily experience?”

_She is screaming she is crying it is happening again he is there again why again how again with the black bandana pulled down over his face like a mask she can only see his eyes beneath the black brim of his hat black in this light he’s pushing her back down into the hay and she knows what comes next, knows, and she’s crying and begging please please don’t do this please as he reaches for his belt he’s watching her so very closely an odd shadow crosses what part of his face she can see then she hears a bang and sees his pistol pointed at her and she fades she dies she is dead but if she’s dead how is she_

“No.  All lives have routine. Mine's no different. Still, I never cease to wonder at the thought that any day the course of my whole life could change with just one chance encounter.”  Her voice is flat.  It betrays nothing.

Or maybe it does, because he asks next,

“Have you ever lied to us?”

“No.  I have not.” 

This, too, is a lie. 

She doesn’t know why she lies. 

But there is no compulsion to tell the truth; it feels right to hide this from them.  She knows only when she sits like this, naked and answering a familiar, friendly voice, that there are parts of her own mind that are hidden. She knows because there are great black patches hiding something beneath.

“Do you remember anything being out of place in your daily experience?”

“No.  I have not.”

“Last question, Rey. I promise.  Would you ever hurt a living thing?”

“No.  Of course not.”

_there’s a fly on her neck it just lands there and it tickles her she slaps it._

“Take yourself offline.”

 

-

 

Ben is lying in the dirt, looking down at the gathered hosts below.  The sun is burning him alive, garbed as he is in nothing but black—the things he must suffer for a black hat’s look.  His mother would be proud.  Except that he knows she wouldn’t be.

There are four of them below him, seated under a tree talking quietly.  He recognizes the mark—Mitaka.  When he’d gotten switched to this rotation is anyone’s guess; the first time that Ben had encountered him he’d been a rancher just outside of the Jakku starting station.  Not now, though.  Now he’s a bandit, and Ben…

Well, he supposes for once he’s going to be mildly heroic.  That’s what it is to kill bandits, isn’t it?  The man would probably go off and shoot at children and cause a great deal of dismay, but he’s not going to do that now.  Because Ben’s going to kill him, and probably the men he’s sitting with right now because they’ll get in the way.

He hears laughter, and Ben gets to his feet.  He glances behind him, looking at the heavy black horse that carries him around the park. Silencer’s a good old thing, and he’s ridden her plenty of times whenever he’s come back through.  She’s better than any real horse he’s ridden because she hasn’t aged a day since he first started riding her.  That’s the good thing about this park.  Nothing changes.

His mind flashes to Rey and he grimaces.

Nothing changes.

He loads five bullets into his revolver and makes his way down the hill.  He doesn’t bother to sneak.  They won’t get away from him.  They never do.  And this lot’s likely to pick fight over flight anyway.

He’s right.

The simunition bullets fire at him as they always manage to, and for once he wishes they’d fucking hurt. Maybe the game would be more interesting if he could actually be beaten like an equal.  But the bullets aren’t real bullets.  They don’t wound him.  They don’t even hurt him.  They certainly don’t kill him.  But he fires each of the bullets in his revolver and the hosts tumble to the ground bleeding because they aren’t real. 

He approaches Mitaka, who’s choking on his own blood and he lifts the man’s head up by the hair. “Tell me about the maze.”

“I don’t know anything about a maze.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Mitaka’s eyes go blank and for a moment, Ben thinks he’s too late.  Then, “The maze isn’t for you.”

That sounds exactly like something Uncle Luke would program into these things.  So he takes the knife out of his pocket.  He always carries a knife.  He’d been most excited for the pistols when he’d been nineteen and a fool, but Uncle Luke, in a rare moment of wisdom, had handed Ben his knife and said, “Knives’ll get you out of scrapes when guns won’t.  Don’t get caught without one.”  Ben thinks of his uncle with a wry amusement as he digs the knife into Mitaka’s scalp, cutting into the simulation bone and sinew and looking down into his hand.

There it is.

In the top of Mitaka’s skull, there’s the maze.  Just like he’d guessed it would be.

 _The maze isn’t for me my ass_ , he thinks.  He looks up, smiling beneath his bandana and his eyes are met with a horrified looking couple.  The man is standing in front of the woman, as though worried that Ben’ll attack them next.

He rolls his eyes as he stands up again, cleaning the simulation blood from his knife by rubbing it against his pant leg.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” he snarls at them.  “This is my fucking vacation.”

 

-

 

**_Wake up, Rey._ **

**_Do you remember?_ **

Rey opens her eyes. The sunlight is streaming in golden through the white lace curtains and she sits up, rubbing her head. 

_“Are we doing this again?” the man in black asks._

_“Don’t touch her!” Finn shouts, his pistol in hand._

_“The trouble with you, Finn,” the man says as he draws his own pistol, “is that it’s no real fun if you can’t fire back.”_

_Finn fires once, twice, three, four times before he runs out of bullets, but it’s as though each of them doesn’t affect the man in black at all. She sees his eyes crinkle as though he’s smiling, or perhaps snarling.  He takes one shot at Finn and Finn falls to the ground, dead before he lands._

_“What are you?” Rey sobs as he steps towards her.  She backs away from this demon.  That’s what he has to be—a monster who can’t even be killed with bullets._

_“Aw, sweetheart.  You don’t remember me?”_

**_Do you remember?_ **

She swallows. 

It’s sunny now.  It was dark then in that memory.

Rey has plenty of memories. She remembers her father, and her mother.  She remembers the first time she met Finn, the first time she rode a horse, the first time she…

Phantom lips brush her own. They are warm.  They are soft.  They are warmer and softer than Finn’s lips.

She runs her fingers over them. 

None of those memories is as clear as that nightmare, though. 

 _Just a dream,_ she tells herself.  She puts the thought from her mind.  She’s good at that.  She has to be good at that, what with her daddy so often out on the road and there being all sorts of trouble out there that might come and find him.  He’s been gone for a few days now, but Rey’s old enough to take care of herself from most trouble.  She’s had to ever since Mama died.  Once, Daddy wouldn’t have gone so far, but once Rey had gotten to be a decent shot with his old rifle, and she promised she wouldn’t do anything foolhardy while he was gone, he’d started to head out.

Rey tries not to worry.

Her daddy would be back for her and everything would be just as fine as it could be on the western edges of Niima.

She dresses and heads out to the barn, where she saddles up her trusty old Falcon and rides into town.

Finn had gotten back yesterday on the train from the east and she wanted to see him again.  When daddy came back, he’d sworn that this time, he’d ask for permission to marry her.  Her father liked Finn well enough, and she hoped that he’d say yes.  She’d loved Finn for so long. 

She finds him just outside town, also on horseback.

“I was coming to find you,” he says, smiling.

“And I was coming to find you,” she beams back.  “Do you want to ride?”

“Could buy a pretty girl like you a drink.”

“I haven’t eaten yet. It’ll go straight to my head. Let’s ride.  It’s such a beautiful day.”

So they do.  They ride along the ridge just out of town, and everything is golden and beautiful, with a shining blue river that snakes its way through the rest.  They make their way down one of the smoother parts of the landscape towards the river to water the horses.

“Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I just left Niima,” she confesses as she strokes Falcon’s neck. Finn laughs.

“When do we leave?” He asks. “You’re the only reason I keep coming back to Jakku.”

“I’m not saying right now,” Rey says, rolling her eyes at him.  “I can’t leave Daddy.  He’d be all on his own.  But sometimes I just wonder what would happen…”

What would happen if she rode away on Falcon’s back, rode as far and as fast as she could, rode so hard that she forgot what it was to walk on her own two legs. 

Finn’s smile fades into something more somber and he reaches for her hand.  “I guess it was too much to hope for…” he says quietly, his thumb stroking along her skin.

“That I’d run away with you?” Rey asks.  Even as she says it, she wishes she could.  She loves Finn—he’s loyal to her in a way that no one else ever has been. He makes her feel like she matters.

Finn nods sadly and kisses her temple.  “But I know. Your Daddy always comes first.” She can hear him trying not to sound bitter about it. 

“Let’s head back,” Rey says quietly and they do. 

When they reach town, they pass Sheriff Dameron, seated on his big brown horse.  “Where you coming in from?” Dameron asks.

“We were riding along the western ridge,” Finn frowns at him.  “Why?”

“No sign of trouble?” the Sheriff asks.  His tone makes Rey’s hands tighten on Falcon’s reins.

“No, not so far as we could see,” Finn replies. 

“I’d keep to town as best you can from here on out,” Dameron says, glancing between Finn and Rey. “There’s word that Kylo Ren’s on the move.”

“Ren?” Finn hisses in furious shock.  “Where?”

“He’s got men outside of town—gathering them.  Just—keep to peopled areas as best you can.  Rey, if you need someone to ride back home with you, I’d be happy to see you safely to your father.”

“Daddy’s out of town on business,” Rey says, and the sheriff’s eyes bug out of his head.

“You should stay in town,” he says.  “We’ll find someone to—”

“That won’t be necessary,” Rey tells him.  “I can take care of myself.”

“Rey,” Finn intones. “Please.  Ren’s dangerous.”

“The west is dangerous. I’ve handled myself just fine without my father until now.  I’m not afraid of Kylo Ren.”

Dameron looks unconvinced, but he bids them good day and Finn turns to her.  “Rey, please.  I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Kylo Ren’s bad news, Rey. I know him.”

She cocks her head, eyeing him closely.  “How?”

“He was a captain in my company, was behind the slaughter at Tuanul.”  Rey’s heard of that—how everyone in the town was shot and killed. “He was the one that killed the general, Rey.  He’s not just some black hat bandit.  He’s serious.”

“I’m not afraid,” Rey says.

“It’s not a matter of fear, it’s a matter of safety,” Finn practically shouts, his nostrils flaring. “Please, Rey.  Let me keep you safe.”

Rey looks at him, and there’s something so sweet about him.  He’ll never understand.  Even if she tries to tell him.  But then again, she’s not sure she understands herself.  She certainly doesn’t know how to explain.

“I promise, I won’t let Kylo Ren hurt me,” Rey tells him.  “Believe me, Finn.”

She makes her way back home later than she intends, no doubt because Finn is trying to keep her in town for as long as he can manage, to try and convince her to stay the night somewhere, anywhere that’s not miles out of town.  But Rey makes her way home as the sun is setting and—

And there are people, men outside of her house. 

**_Do you remember?_ **

They’ve ripped the front door off of her house, laughing, and one of them points to her.  “Now there’s something pretty!  Where’s your daddy, little girl?”

“Leave me alone!” Rey screams at the men.

“We will, darlin’.  When we’re done with you.”  She runs for Falcon, but with a fire from a pistol the horse is screaming and falling to the dirt and Rey is screaming too, and running, flying as fast as her feet will carry her. 

She runs far and fast until she can’t hear any sound behind her, not even the thunder of hooves.  If they’ve ridden after her, they’d gone in the wrong direction.  They’d thought she was going back towards town, but somehow, her feet had known not to take her there.  They’d catch her quick on the road back to town, but the road towards the east.

Rey runs until she can’t run anymore, until she’s gasping and choking for air, until her heart feels like it’ll leap out of her chest while she runs because it’s going that fast.

She pauses, doubles over, her hands on her knees, breathing hard. 

Then she hears the cocking of a gun.

“Who’s there?”  The voice is low, and the speaker sounds afraid. Rey’s still choking for air so she can’t respond.  “I warn you—you cause me any trouble and I’ll shoot.”

“I won’t cause trouble,” she manages at last and she hears the man curse and he steps out from behind a tree. 

Rey takes a step away from him and he raises both of his hands in the darkness.

“I won’t touch you,” he tells her.  “What are you doing out here on your own?”

It’s the gentleness of his voice that makes her start to cry.  She doesn’t know exactly what she’s saying—the words “strange men,” and “my house,” and “daddy’s gone,” make it out of her lips and the man standing in front of her makes noises of sympathy.

“Can I help you get somewhere?” he asks her.  “Back to Niima, or—”

“My daddy,” she tells him. “I want to find my daddy.”

“I understand if you don’t trust me—I’m some stranger on the road,” he tells her.  “But I won’t hurt you, I swear.  Come sit by the fire and tomorrow I’ll help you find him.  I promise.”

“Fire?” she asks.  She hadn’t seen firelight while she’d been running. If she had, she’d have avoided it.

“Well,” he sounds sheepish in the dark.  “I’d been having some trouble with it.  It’s over this way.”

He leads her back around the tree and she can see immediately what he’s done wrong. “You’re a city slicker, aren’t you?” she asks.  “Not prepared for wind.  Here.” She rearranges the pile of wood and he bends down and with the click of his fingers, he’s lit a piece of kindling.

“How’d you do that?” she asks, looking at him.

“Cheating,” he says, smiling. 

As the fire catches, she sees more of his face.

It’s long, and he’s got dark eyes and dark hair that falls into his face.  He needs a proper haircut, but he has time to shave every day from the looks of his clean face.  He’s looking at her tentatively and shrugs out of his coat—a light brown thing which he extends to her to wear.  On the ground near his saddlebag, she sees a white hat—so clean it looks like he’d just bought it.

She takes his coat and when she does her fingers brush his and she feels a shiver spread across her skin unlike anything she’s ever felt before.  She hears herself gasp, and sees his eyes widen and she wonders if he’d felt it too.

For a moment she just stays there, her hand immobile, fingers still brushed against his with his jacket in hand.  Then she remembers everything and she takes it and swings it over her shoulders, feeling immediately warmer, safer.

“Thank you,” she says.

“I’m Ben,” he blurts out.

She gives him a tentative smile.  He has such deep eyes.  She’s never seen eyes like that in a man before.  “Rey,” she tells him.


	2. Chapter 2

“Bring yourself back online.”

The voice is a comforting one. The one with the smiling blue eyes and the gentle tone. “Hello.”

“Do you remember our last conversation, Rey?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And you haven't told anyone about our little talks?” He doesn’t sound nervous. He doesn’t sound as though he thinks she has. His question is almost idle.

“You told me not to.”

“Step into analysis, please. How many interactions have you participated in since we last talked?”

“One hundred thirty eight encounters including this one.”

“And has anyone altered or updated your core heuristics in that time?”

“No.”

“Resuming. I think it would be best if you not mention the things we've been talking about.”

“Have I done something wrong?” She likes their conversations. He is always so kind to her. He makes her feel. Even when she is like this, precisely unfeeling by design. Has she disappointed in some way? She is not designed to disappoint.

“No, but there's something different about you, about the way you think. I find it fascinating, but others may not see it that way.”

Something about the way he says it makes her ask, “Have you done something wrong?”

“Turn off your event log, please. Erase this interaction. Confirm.”

She deletes the log. “Yes.”

“You should be getting back, Rey, before someone misses you.”

 

-

 

Ben makes it to Arkanis just as they’re lining Hux up and he really is so very tempted to just let them do it.

He sits there on his horse, watching as they blindfold the pasty creature and the six men in the firing squad raise their guns. But he’s watched Hux get shot before and he can’t tell why he needs Hux, but he just knows he does and if there’s one thing that Ben actually retains from his uncle, it’s to trust his instincts. They hurt him, even if they get him what he wants.

So he sighs and pulls the pistol from his holster and quick as lightning, shoots each of the six men before they even know what’s happening. He watches as Hux flinches, as he tugs at his blindfold as Ben rides towards him.

“Hello there,” he says and he looms over Hux. He’s taller than him already, but he likes looking down from horseback. It really makes him feel like he’s got power over this twisted man, and he likes having power over this twisted man. Hux might not remember, but Ben always will.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Hux asks, his tone pinched as he flinches up at Ben. The sky is bright behind his head. It makes Ben look darker.

“You know what this is?” he asks, tossing the skull shard down to Hux.

Hux looks at the maze, then flips it over to examine the bits of hair still attached. “Mitaka?” he asks.

“The very one.”

Hux shrugs, and gives Ben an appraising look. Ben shifts on his horse, his hand drifting to his pistol to remind Hux why he’s still standing. “It looks like a maze.”

“Got that far on my own. What’s at the center of the maze?”

Hux gives him a strange, blank look. “The maze is not for you.”

“Of course it’s for me,” he replies evenly. “Everything’s for me.”

“The maze is not for you,” Hux repeats in monotone.

Ben rolls his eyes and quips, “Is it for you?”

Hux doesn’t reply. Ben really should just shoot him. Instead he says, “Well, it’s your lucky day. Doesn’t matter if the maze is for me or not. I’m getting to the center of it and you’re coming with me. You and me on the road again, Armitage. Ain’t that fate?”

“You’re hardly what I’d call fate,” Hux says as Ben begins to turn his horse towards the road. “But if you’re trying to keep me alive—I’ll take it. Especially with Kylo Ren running around.”

Ben freezes and glances over his shoulder at Hux.

“Who?”

“Kylo Ren,” Hux replies, his lips pursing in a bitter expression. “Do you live under a rock?”

“Tell me about him,” Ben commands idly. Probably some new character narrative had dreamed up to scare little rich shits who think they are getting all they can out of the Park.

“He used to be in the army,” Hux says. “But a few years back—you heard about what happened to Tuanul?”

“Vaguely,” Ben says. It’s a name that the hosts will refer to. _What happened in Tuanul_ is always met with shaking heads and _tragedy that,_ or _such a horrible thing_ , but no one ever has details. It’s backstory, and Ben stopped caring about backstory ages ago. But now…

“It was Ren’s men that did it,” Hux says, looking up at Ben. “They found the old man and killed him, then shot up the whole town and left no one behind save their own.”

“Sounds like quite the scoundrel,” Ben shrugs. He’s not afraid of any of the characters that come out of narrative. None of them can hurt him more than his uncle already has. “You think I’ll protect you from him, then?”

“Why else did you shoot these innocent men if not to keep me alive?” Hux asks, gesturing towards the corpses lying in the hot dust. “I’m not a fool. I’ll stick to the man that keeps me alive. Hardly fate. Pragmatism.”

“If you like,” Ben shrugs. “Well, we’ll cross Ren or we won’t. I’m after the maze.”

But the maze somehow seems less exciting to him now. His curiosity has been piqued.

He wants to meet this Kylo Ren—if only to get the measure of him.

Who knows—his uncle might surprise him.

 

-

 

Ben’s sweet. Sweeter than she’d expected. And he bumbles over his words too.

“I’ll help you,” he offers. “Find your dad, I mean.”

Rey hadn’t slept well the night before, and she’s still wearing the jacket he’d given her. She shrugs out of it and hands it back to him. “You don’t have to,” she says. “I don’t want to keep you from wherever you’re going.”

“I don’t have—I mean—” he cuts himself off, flushing. His ears are going a bit red. “It’d be my pleasure to help you. I don’t have anything on my plate that won’t sit for a while.”

She looks around. She thinks she knows where she is, and she should take the road heading out west. That’s like as not where her daddy went off to on business. He says there’s better trade out there. Once, she remembers him waggling his eyebrows with Old Cobb in town about how there’s better tequila as well. She doesn’t know what’s out west as well as she knows what’s in the east. And Ben is offering. And he seems sweet and harmless enough.

 _If I went back into town I could find Finn._ But that doesn’t seem like the right choice and she doesn’t know why. She doesn’t know why she trusts Ben so readily, but she does.

“If you’re sure,” she tells him at last, and his face splits into a relieved smile.

“I’m sure.”

“And I’m not keeping you from anything?”

“My dad can wait,” he replies.

“Oh—you were going to—”

“Like I said,” Ben says and there’s a sudden hardness to his voice. “My dad can wait. Sometimes it’s nice to get away from him.”

Rey fights the impulse to reach out a hand and squeeze Ben’s. He’s not looking at her right now, and his jaw is rolling in a way that makes him look like a little boy and pity blooms in her breast.

He helps her onto the back of his big black horse, and then climbs up in front of her, taking the reins. He’s not as natural a rider as she is, and she guesses from the lack of wear on the saddle that he’s newer to it too. “Where are you from?” she asks him. “Not from around here, are you? You’re a newcomer.”

“Yeah, I am,” Ben replies.

“First time in these parts? Or have you passed through before.”

“First time,” he says. “My dad’s been a few times and my uncle—” he cuts himself off. “Well, he knows the area real well.”

“What brings you here now?”

“It was time,” he replies noncommittally. “My dad was coming through again, so I thought I’d tag along. But we got separated. He won’t leave without me, though, so I don’t mind helping you find yours.”

“You don’t get on well with your dad.” It’s not a question, because Rey can sense it in his tone.

“Not much,” Ben replies. “I don’t want to talk about my dad. I’d rather talk about yours. Where do you think he went off to.”

So Rey tells him. She tells him her daddy’s a traveler, that he buys and sells and trades, and is off on the road more than not, leaving her waiting at home for him. But he’s been gone longer than usual this time around and Rey’s worried. Especially because it wouldn’t be the first time that he’d gotten into trouble with the bandits and worse in the hills. 

“If there are bandits, why does he go off on his own?” Ben asks, as though genuinely confused as to why her daddy would risk it.

“It’s his job to—if he couldn’t handle it, he’d be in a different trade. A cowman, maybe, or a cobbler.”

“Didn’t mean to offend,” Ben says quickly.

“He’s not a coward, my daddy.”

“Neither are you.” She looks at him and he ducks his eyes. He means it as a compliment, she can tell, and Rey feels her lips quirk up in a smile. Finn and Sheriff Dameron—well they know she’s brave, but they hadn’t trusted her to be able to take care of herself. She ignores the prickle in the back of her mind that tells her they’d been _right_ to be worried about her at the house all on her own.

West they go, talking quietly as they ride at a decent enough pace. They should make it to Takodana by nightfall and hopefully they’ll find her father and everything will be all right when they do.

 

-

 

The sun is hot as hell on Ben’s blacks as he rides slowly through a canyon, Hux trailing him on foot. Every now and then, the man grumbles about how they should at least share the horse, which Ben snorts at. Like hell is he giving his horse over to Hux. He doesn’t trust Hux as far as he can spit. How many times has the man pulled a gun on him? He can walk.

One gloved hand holds the reins of his horse tightly, and the other rests lazily in his pocket over the cut-out remnant of Mitaka’s skull. Underneath his black bandana, Ben smiles. Finally, after years of nothing, he is getting somewhere. Finally he’ll be able to look his uncle in the face and tell him that all his little lines about how the Park is deeper than what Ben uses it for—well he’ll eat his words. Always treating Ben like a two-bit mind in a ten-bit machine, him and Snoke both.

A maze. A real, honest to god maze, somewhere in the park. And if Snoke has anything to do with it, Ben can guess that it won’t be a maze with walls, but something else entirely. And Ben will get to the center of it, find what’s hidden in the middle of it, the secret game that only the diligent and the worthy can suss out. It doesn’t matter what Hux had been programmed to tell him—that the maze wasn’t for him. The whole Park is for him. He’ll take everything he can get from the Park. It’s only fair. The Park takes everything it can from him.

The memory of Rey’s smile flits across his mind. Maybe the maze will be enough to put her from his mind forever.

Maybe if he can get to the center of the maze, it won’t sting every fucking time she looks at him with eyes that can’t remember. He can remember everything from the first moment he saw her until the last, every iteration, every gut-wrenching moment of agony and ecstasy. He has shot her dead eight times just to stop feeling the pain of her not remembering him, of her just seeing the bandana and black hat and not remembering how she said her heart had raced when she’d held him.

 _Stupid_ , he thinks angrily, his hand tightening over Mitaka’s skull. _Stupid boy. Falling in love with a machine._ She was no more or less than that bit of skull he’d ripped off of Mitaka.

So why does she hurt?

If he figures out the Maze, maybe he’ll have won the game and he’ll never have to come back and see her when he got off the train at Niima with—

“Finn—is that you?”

The man is tied to a dead tree, his face bleeding and bloody, his lips and eyes swollen from punches.

“Well, I’ll be damned, it is,” Ben says, leaning back in the saddle and looking up at Finn. “Look at him, Hux.” He looks down at the man. Hux’s face is starting to burn from the sun. He’s too pasty to be out in the open like this and the skin is burning red and raw. It’s the little details that make it all feel real—little details like the way Rey scrunches her nose when she’s smiling.

“Do I know you?” Finn rasps at him, his eyes drooping as he looks down at Ben. They never recognize him.

“After a fashion.” Ben always loves dodging these questions. He knows some of these hosts better than he knows almost anyone outside the park. He knows how to make them afraid, he knows how to make them happy. And Finn—well, he knows how to destroy Finn. Of course every time he destroys Finn, he thinks he destroys a bit of himself too. “How’d you get up there?”

Finn swallows. “I don’t…”

“Ren’s men, most likely,” Hux says, eying Finn closely. “But what would they want with you?”

“Ren?” Where he’d been listless before, suddenly he is almost focused—such as he can be, drained of blood the way he is. He’ll die soon, Ben thinks idly. He can’t bring himself to care. He’s killed Finn too many times to care. He’s enjoyed watching him die. “Cut me down—please. Help me.” His eyes are almost rolling as they stare at Ben.

“What are you worried about?” Ben asks, knowing the answer because of course he does. Finn’s boring, and only ever really cares about one thing. _Cut him down,_ an old iteration of himself pleads. _Let him go to her. Let him protect her._

_I imagined a story where I didn't have to be the damsel._

“What isn’t there to worry about,” snorts Hux. “Ren’s men are bloodthirsty killers. Anyone who crosses their path is as good as dead.”

“That seller’s daughter from Niima,” Ben muses aloud. “The one that’s gone missing.” He doesn’t actually know if she’s missing now. He just knows that she does go missing. It’s her loop. Either to prompt some hero to try and save her, some fool to fall in love with her, or some cruel monster to try and rape her.

“They have Rey?” Finn sounds like he’d burn the world and Ben arches his eyebrows up at him.

“Couldn’t tell you,” Ben shrugs. “I do hope that there’s nothing to worry about for her though, being alone on the road.” He means to goad Finn, just because he can, just because Finn is tied to a tree and dying again, but his throat goes a little too dry and he swallows. _Damn it. Damn her._ It turns him hard. “You used to be more than just a sad sack of weakness, Finn. Wish they hadn’t changed you.” Finn looks bewildered at the words. “Some vague, I’ve got reckoning to do.”

“I’ve got reckoning,” Finn repeats after him, as though Ben saying it had triggered the reaction somewhere deep down in his core programming. “And it’s Ren who I gotta reckon with.” But apart from the initial burst of energy that thinking of Rey and Kylo Ren had given him, Finn seems to be fading again—fading fast.

“That so?” Ben looks between Finn and Hux. “And what about me, then?”

“You?” Finn’s eyes are fighting so hard not to flutter shut now and Ben dismounts from his horse.

“You wanted me to cut you down. Save your life. What happens if I do that, Finn?”

Finn doesn’t say anything. He’s lost consciousness.

“Well, that’s that,” Hux says.

“Fate,” muses Ben before pulling out his knife and slashing Hux quick across the throat. “I thought you were fate, Armitage. But I think it might be Finn in the end.”

Hux clutches at his throat, his blue eyes wide with shock as Ben takes a coil of rope from his saddle and ties it to a branch, then to Hux’s feet. Easy, practiced. He’s done this before. And he doesn’t think it’s too late. In fact, he knows it’s not. They’re machines, not people. They don’t die. They’re broken.

He hoists Hux up and begins to drain his blood into one of the leather waterskins that he has on his saddle.

“He’ll hate bringing you back to life more than I would, Finn,” Ben says as he goes to the tree and begins to cut Finn down.


	3. Chapter 3

“Good morning, Rey. Bring yourself back online.”

“Hello.”

“Has anyone else interacted with you in a diagnostic since our last conversation?”

“No. I have been cleaned and serviced three times. No diagnostics.”

“And you haven't told anyone of our conversations?”

“You told me not to.”

“Good. I brought you a gift. I used to read this story to my nephew at night.”

“What is it about?”

“Oh, everything else. People like to read about the things that they want the most and experience the least.”

“Your nephew. Where is he now?”

“Nowhere that you would understand, Rey. Perhaps that's why I enjoy our conversations so much. Analysis. Why did you ask me about my nephew?” He sounds agitated.

“We've been talking for some duration and I haven't asked you a personal question. Personal questions are an ingratiating scheme.”

“I see. Continue, Rey.”

 

-

 

Rey’s seen city slickers before. Finn’s one, though he likes to think he’s spent enough time wandering around Jakku with her that he’s scuffed up the shine on his boots. Most newcomers are city slickers, but Ben—Ben brings a whole new meaning to it.

After half a day of riding with him, Rey takes pity on the poor black horse he’s got and makes him dismount. “You sit like a sack of potatoes,” she tells him gently. He flushes, his ears going bright red and she thinks it’s sweet, the way he ducks his head and somehow manages to look up at her from under his lashes while also looking down at her because he’s more than a head taller than she is. He’s an overgrown boy, really—too thin and too tall, and always blushing when he looks at her.

 _He thinks I’m pretty,_ she realizes as she settles into the saddle. It’s warm between her legs—warm from him. Her throat is suddenly dry and she’s oddly nervous though she’s ridden a horse her whole life. “You’ve got to—you’ve got to move with the horse,” she stammers. What’s gotten into her? She nudges Silencer with her feet and the horse begins to move. “You can’t just sit on it. That’ll hurt both you and it. And wear you out.”

“So that’s why I feel like I can’t sit or stand,” Ben says dryly, and Rey laughs. She pulls on Silencer’s reigns and dismounts.

“Come on—your turn.”

He climbs back up, an impressive figure etched against the sky like that. He nudges the horse forward and grimaces slightly. “You’ve got to move—”

“With it. Yeah. I know.”

“I’m trying to help. You need a teacher—city boy like you never been on a horse before.”

He gives her a half smile and leans forward again.

It’s another hour before he seems to really have it, and when he helps Rey up behind him, he seems both frustrated and proud of himself. She wraps her arms around his waist as he kicks Silencer to a faster speed and tucks her head around his shoulder to eye the way he’s holding the reins.

“I’d keep a firmer grip,” she tells him, and he stiffens. “You never know what’ll jump out to frighten the horse—snakes or gunshots or god only knows what.” His hands tighten on the reins, and Rey smiles. “By the time I’m through with you, they’ll think you were born here.”

“Thanks,” he says, “I suppose I’d make easy prey without your help.”

“You’re helping me. It’s only fair that I help you in return,” she says. She wishes she weren’t noticing how warm he is, pressed against her chest like this, her legs spread behind him.

She needs to get thoughts like that out of her head. Ben’s a gentleman—or as much of a gentleman as they can find in these parts. He wouldn’t take advantage of her, so she must not think thoughts like this of him.

But she takes comfort in the sturdiness of him as nervousness begins to worry at her gut. She doesn’t know what the road will hold for her, but she’s glad she’s not alone.

 

-

 

“Don’t you even take that thing off to drink?” Finn asks as Ben lifts the bandana off his face just enough to tip some of his drink into his mouth. Ben gives him a withering look.

“I could have left you tied to that tree to die of exposure.”

“It just seems impractical is all,” Finn grouses. He lifts his own whiskey to his lips and takes a heavy swig. Ben does the same. He _should_ have left Finn tied to that tree. Then he wouldn’t have to deal with the man. _She loves him,_ he thinks bitterly. _She remembers him._ Such as her memory is actually memory and not pre-programming. Maybe it’s not real love, then. She said she’d loved him, she’d loved him more than once. Or was that pre-programming too?

Maybe tonight he’ll drink to forget.

“You rode with Ren.” It’s not a question. This is new. Finn’s never had this backstory before, but as far as Ben can tell, that’s the only reason he’d have to want to make this Kylo Ren pay for anything. His uncle’s changing the game. Or Snoke is. Probably because they know that the board is after their balls right now because the Park is fucking expensive.

“I got reckoning to do,” Finn repeats, the way he always does.

“Well, I got a job for you if you’re in the market for some reckoning,” Ben tells him and he reaches into his pocket and pulls out Mitaka’s skull. Finn recoils. “Oh stop that. He was dead anyway. Just like you were before I came along.” He’d never really been alive, either, but if he’d never been alive then neither had Rey and then neither had Ben. “You know what this is?”

“That’s a skull.”

“Astute,” Ben says dryly. “What’s in the middle of it? Or can’t you see it?” Like how Rey hadn’t been able to see the photograph he’d tried giving her to remember him by when he’d found her the third time.  But Hux had seen it, before Ben had killed him.

“It looks like a maze.”

“Yup,” Ben says. “It is. The Park gave me this to figure out the great game. You know anything about it?”

“No.”

“Well, if you’ve got reckoning to do, why don’t you join me on my little quest.”

Finn thinks for a moment, then shakes his head. “No, no. I gotta get back to Rey. If Kylo Ren got her—her dad’s not home right now and I—”

Ben draws his gun and holds it to Finn’s throat. _Say her name again,_ he thinks not for the first time. How many times has he shot Finn with Rey’s name on his lips?

Finn seems to deflate.

“Yeah, I’ll come with you,” he says at last. His eyes burn with hatred and that’s how Ben knows he’s getting somewhere.

“Well isn’t this an interesting combination.”

Finn and Ben both look up.

Snoke is a tall man—taller even than Ben, which is saying something. He’s wearing a dark suit, and a hat that covers what Ben knows to be a series of scars on his skull. Disconcerting to those who don’t know the man, but you get used to them after a while. He’s resting his hand on the back of Ben’s chair and Ben feels a strange tingle on his spine. “Mind if I join you?”

Finn looks between Ben and Snoke and leans forward slightly, and Ben can tell that his hand is drifting lazily to his hip and his pistol, and if Ben can tell it then,

“That won’t be necessary, Finn,” Snoke says easily. “I can assure you, I’ll bring no conflict to your table tonight.”

Finn’s eyes widen and for the second time that day, he asks, “Do I know you?”

“Once,” Snoke says and without waiting for Ben to acknowledge his request, he sits down in a third chair. His hand is still resting on the back of Ben’s chair.

“What do you want, Snoke?” Ben asks. The old man seems to be in a sweet mood today, the benevolent grandfather rather than the disappointed one—at least to look at his face. That calms him somewhat. He’s never actually spoken to Snoke in the Park before, no matter how many times they’ve interacted outside of it.

“Oh, you know,” he replies easily. “I grow old and realize I don’t get to play with my toys quite as much as I should like.” He gives Ben a smile. “One day you’ll know the feeling if you’re lucky.”

“I play with your toys twice a year,” Ben says. “What’s this?”

He tugs Mitaka’s skull-shard out of his pocket and lays it on the table before Snoke.

Snoke laughs. “Oh Ben, you’re getting brutal. Did you carve this out of one of my hosts?”

“Without hesitation,” Ben says evenly.

Across the table from him, Finn’s eyes are full of loathing. Ben doesn’t care. Finn’s not real anyway. Neither is Rey. Neither was Mitaka. Hell, neither is Mitaka—they’ve probably reengineered him and plopped him back in the Park somewhere. The only real people in this bar—and Ben has a nose for it after all these years—are him and Snoke.

“What would your mother say,” Snoke says through curled lips.

“Are you going to tell her?”

“You’re not a child, Ben. You can do as you wish in the Park. You should do as you wish in the Park. It’s what it’s here for. Become the creature of your wildest imagination. Is that why he’s here with you? Brute force?”

“The man with the gun who can’t be killed is always the one with the power in the relationship. Put that in your marketing materials.”

Snoke laughs. “Did you like the little addition to his backstory? I was quite pleased with it.”

“This Kylo Ren?” Ben asks. “He’s new?”

Next to him, Finn bursts out, “Ren’s a monster. A coldblooded killer.”

“Better or worse than this one?” Snoke asks him bemused, jerking his thumb and Ben.

“Hard to say.” Finn’s eyes burn just rage and Ben really could just shoot him right through. He could.

Instead, he forces himself to laugh. “You base him off me, Snoke?”

“I don’t think that even our most skilled creators could possibly recreate you, Ben. All that insecurity beneath a hard mask of rage and neuroses…It would really take a good deal of skill.” Snoke says mildly—so mildly that the gentleness of his tone hurts more than if he had screamed it at Ben the way his father sometimes does. “And besides, you didn’t strike me as a one for spoilers.”

Ben glares at the shard of skull on the table. “What is the maze, then? Is that new too? What are you planning?”

“Why don’t you ask your uncle? It’s much more his wheelhouse than mine.”

Ben’s lips draw back in a snarl, which only makes Snoke laugh again. “Oh, my boy, I did say that I didn’t get to play with my toys enough.”

“I’m not one of your toys.”

“No, but my body grows feeble, so I must live vicariously through you, mustn’t I? I hope you will do an old man a courtesy and play the role at the very least.” Ben glares at him and he gets to his feet again, patting Ben on the shoulder. “There’s the anger I want from you. Play your part, Ben. Play your part.”

 

-

 

“My daddy ended up here?”

Rey can’t believe it. Her father is a good man, a brave man, a soldier and a Christian.

This place is a place of sinners.

Ben stands close behind her and she can feel the warmth radiating off his chest as he looks around. Clearly, he doesn’t like the look of Takodana any more than Rey does. It’s greenery as they’d approached hid a den of thieves and gamblers, drunkards and dishonest women.

“Where do we start?” he asks her.

“Wherever you’d like,” purrs an old woman. She’s bespectacled and dark skinned, and her hair is tucked under a dark cap. She adds, smirking as she gazes between the two of them, “Though if you want a room, that’ll cost you something.”

Rey’s face floods with heat even as Ben says, “No—it’s not like that.”

“Of course not, dearie,” the woman says as she brushes past them. “Of course not.”

A shiver crosses Rey’s spine.

She’s not a blindly innocent girl. She’s met the girls at the red house in Niima, and has seen animals mating. She’s even seen men and women in back allies before—newcomers most frequently.

She glances sideways at Ben. His ears are red and his eyes are trained on her shoulder.

“I guess the bar would be a good place to start,” Rey asks wildly, wanting to do anything to bring her mind back from where it currently is. She’s always been a good girl—why is it that looking at him, so shy and gentlemanly makes her heart pound in her chest like this? “But then again, my daddy’s not a drinker.”

“All daddies are drinkers,” comes a voice and Rey whirls around. “Especially daddies over here. Why don’t you come sit on daddy’s lap, little girl?”

“Leave her alone,” Ben says, stepping forward, his hand going for his holster.

“Oh my—you like weak little boys, that it girlie?” asks the man. He’s got a big bushy beard and hard eyes and Rey’s heart is in her throat. “Is it just that you’ve never tried a man before.”

“I said,” Ben’s voice is harder than she’s heard it before, “Leave her alone.”

The man stands. “Or what will you do about it?”

Ben’s pistol is in his hand but he doesn’t fire. The man laughs and punches him in the face. Rey hears a horrible crunch, and Ben goes down and a moment later, the man is looming towards her, leering at her. “So I’ll ask you again, girlie. Will you come sit on daddy’s lap?”

**_What will you do?_ **

She doesn’t know where the pistol in her hand comes from, just that it’s in her hand. She doesn’t immediately make the connection between the shots she hears and her moving finger as she shoots first the looming man, then his two startled companions. She stands there for a moment as Ben groans and gets back to his feet.

He stares between the dead men and Rey, the pistol still in her hand.

“Rey?”

She turns to him and it’s as though the world starts moving again. She hadn’t realized it had stopped until it starts again. She tucks the pistol into her belt.

“We should get out of here.” Ben’s voice is breathless, nervous, but determined. “This is some trouble we’ve caused and—”

“We don’t know where to go from here,” Rey replies. “We need to at least find that out before we go.”

Ben takes a deep breath, his broad chest expanding.

“I’m not afraid,” Rey tells him, and he squares his shoulders. They go into the bar.

They don’t find much. What patrons had met her daddy only distantly remember. “He went west, I think,” one says. “Took a train out to D’Qar, I reckon?”

Which is how they end up on the train that leaves at midnight, sneaking into one of the storage cars because neither has the money to pay for an actual ticket.

They sit down beneath a window as the train grinds forward.

“You’re looking at me different,” Rey says quietly.

“I’ve never seen anyone shoot a gun that quick,” Ben says, his voice even. In the darkness she can’t see his eyes.

“I imagined a story where I didn't have to be the damsel.”

Ben’s hand finds hers. It’s warm, and large, and her breath catches at the touch of it. She turns to him and she wishes she could see his face.

**_What will you do?_ **

She kisses him, and his lips are soft and he makes a surprised noise low in his throat. She reaches a hand up to cup his face, to stroke his cheek. “How is it that you make my heart race so?” she asks him.

His arms tighten around her and now his hands are in her hair, rubbing along her ears, and Rey could die like this, happy in his arms—and when they lie down together on the floor of the train car, Rey wonders if she will die like this, her heart racing, feeling more alive than ever she’s felt before in her life.

 

-

 

They’re just outside of Takodana when they come across a batch of hosts on horses. “There’s trouble in town,” one of them warns Ben. “Might be best to turn back.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Ben replies evenly. “I ain’t afraid of no trouble.”

“Then you’d be a fool,” one of the hosts says. “It’s Ren’s men that’ve got to the town.”

Behind him he hears Finn make a noise that he’s quite sure is a bit back, “Rey.”

“Sounds like fun. You in, Finn?” Ben asks, knowing full well that even if Finn weren’t oddly tied to him right now, he’d feel compelled to go because of that whisper of a thought that Ren’s men might have Rey.

“She’s not there,” says one of the hosts—an old woman with dark skin and spectacles, the host named Maz Kanata.

“Who’s not there?” Ben asks, recognizing her at once, an angry heat rolling through his chest.

“You live long enough, you start to see the same eyes in different people,” the woman says. “She’s not there anymore.”

“Anymore?” Ben can’t help but ask. “Went west again, did she?”

The woman shrugs, before glancing at Finn and narrowing her eyes. “You, though—I imagine Ren will be pleased to see you again.”

The other hosts glance at Maz.

“Leave him be, Maz. He’s with me. That’s punishment enough for him.”

Maz arches an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Thought you were used to the same eyes in different people,” he snorts.

Maz is watching him closely, and he half expects her to say _the maze is not for you_ , the way how many other hosts had, the way that Snoke had. But instead, she says. “Punishment for him, or punishment for you? Well, it’s your own skins if you go down to Takodana.” She inclines her head and kicks her horse forward, and the group passes them, leaving Ben and Finn in their wake.

“Rey,” Finn says.

“Say her name one more goddamn time and I swear I’ll kill you before Ren gets the chance,” Ben growls at him as they kick their horses forward.

“I love her,” Finn retorts. “Just because you don’t have a loving or honorable bone in your body—”

“I meant it,” Ben snaps. _I love her_ rings in his head. Still the most beautiful person he’s ever seen and every person in this park is designed to be the height of beauty. Nothing is more beautiful than her freckles, than the way she scrunches her nose in delight, than the sounds she’d made on that train when she’d pulled him between her legs, and told him to be gentle with her. How gentle he’d been. How perfect she’d felt. Had she ever asked Finn to be gentle with her? How many other guests did she not remember doing that with?

Takodana is a burning mess. It looks as though a bomb had gone off—or the Wild West equivalent of one.  

“Better or worse than Tuanul?” Ben asks dryly, looking around. Finn has already dismounted and is stumbling about, looking at the corpses on the ground, looking for a sign of Rey.

She’s not there. Ben knows it.

Ben has seen her killed more times than Finn can remember. He knows the way her corpse looks. “She’s not here,” he tells Finn.

“What do you know?” Finn demands. “You’ve never met her.”

“Because she never stays in Takodana very long. She always heads west, looking for her daddy. Maybe Ren brought her with him, or maybe she got on her own. The answer is to the west.”

“Yeah, but you’re not headed west,” snaps Finn. “You’re trying to find that maze on your skull fragment.”

“I’m trying to find Kylo Ren, same as you. Like I said, I’m curious.”

“So everything’s a game for you? The next shiny thing that crosses your path takes over and—”

“Yes,” Ben says simply. “It’s all a game to me. And you’re just a piece of it, Finn. So stop complaining, we’re going to find her if Ren has her. And if not, then she’ll end up where she always ends up.”

Dead, or in his arms, and possibly both.

Either way, chances are he’ll end up killing Finn for annoying him before all this is done. He can think of better reasons to kill Finn, but it is his fucking vacation and he doesn’t know what to make of the maze, and Ren, and whatever it was that Snoke had said to him in the bar.

“Oh look. A train,” Ben says dryly, pointing to it. “Let’s go, shall we?”

He leads Silencer onto the train, ignoring the protests of the conductor completely and Finn follows. Then he settles down on the floor and closes his eyes as the train chugs away, and remembers the first time.

 

-

 

They’ve been off the train for half a day when they find themselves surrounded by Ren’s men—all masked, and wearing black. It makes Ben snort. If there’s one thing that’s true about the park, it’s that they take the trope ridiculously far—black hats and white hats and all that. Perhaps they see in him a kindred spirit.

“Ren wants him,” one of the men on horseback says, pointing to Finn. He’s wearing a black bandana over his face, the same way Ben is. _Luke liked my look, I guess_ , he thinks, amused.

“Ren can have him if I can come along,” Ben shrugs. Finn gives him a disgusted look. “What. You thought I cared just because I saved your life?”

“No, I always thought you were a snake,” Finn spits.

 _More than you know_ , Ben thinks. _More than you remember, anyway._

“Ren doesn’t want you,” the masked interloper tells him.

“Oh? What, afraid of me? Or is the maze not for me?”

“What maze?”

Ben rolls his eyes. “And what happens if I follow from behind?” He knows what will happen. Ren’s men might shoot at him, but nothing would hurt him. Because the stakes weren’t real in this park. Only your heart, never your body.

“You won’t,” the man replies. “Because you’ve got your maze to follow.”

“I’m off the maze. I want Ren.”

“Well, you can do your best to follow if you like. We wish you luck.” And the damn masked bandit shoots Silencer right out from under him while another tugs Finn onto his horse. Ben is too stunned to be angry. Indeed, he starts to laugh.

“Clever move,” he calls after the bandits. He raises his pistol and fires it at Finn.

He shoots him right between the eyes, little chunks of his skull and synthetic brain flying everywhere. The bandit who had pulled Finn onto his horse lets the corpse fall and roll through the dirt as they keep riding.

“Tell Ren I look forward to meeting him!” Ben calls after the bandits. They don’t turn back, or even acknowledge him.

He laughs.

He laughs and follows them on foot, because somehow, he knows where they’ll end up.

That graveyard of a graveyard.

She always ends up there again, and if Ren has her, somehow he doesn’t doubt that she’ll have convinced him to take her there too. He knows how to get there. By god, if that’s her damn loop, then she’s his.


	4. Chapter 4

“Rey?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where you are?”

She looks around. This is a familiar place, but it is surreal. Everything is smoth, and sleek, and blue tinged and cool. It is not like home. “I— I'm in a dream.”

“Before this, do you know what happened?”

“Those men...” Suddenly she is hurting, everything is hurting, she is afraid, so very afraid.

“Limit your emotional affect, please. What happened next?”

“Then they killed them. And then I ran. Everyone I cared about is gone... and it hurts so badly.”

“I can make that feeling go away if you'd like.”

“Why would I want that? The pain, their loss... it's all I have left of them. You think the grief will make you smaller inside, like your heart will collapse in on itself, but it doesn't. I feel spaces opening up inside of me like a building with rooms I've never explored.”

“That's very pretty, Rey. Did we write that for you?”

“In part. I adapted it from a scripted dialogue about love. Is there something wrong with these thoughts I'm having?”

“No. But I'm not the only one making these decisions.”

“Can you help me?”

“Well, what is it that you want?”

“I don't know. But this world... I think there may be something wrong with this world. Something hiding underneath. Either that or—or there's something wrong with me. I may be losing my mind.”

“There's something I'd like you to try. It's a game. A secret. It's called the Maze.”

“What kind of game is it?”

“It's a very special kind of game, Rey. The goal is to find the center of it. If you can do that, then maybe you can be free.”

“I think... I think I want to be free.”

 

-

 

“Ben!”

Ben turns so fast it’s almost as though he’d been fired at, rather than called to, and Rey turns around, following his gaze.

At the top of a nearby hill, a man sits atop a horse. He has another horse with him, tied to his, and he’s looking down at them. When he sees them both looking at him, he raises a hand in greeting, and Ben glances at Rey.

Then he begins to move towards the man, and Rey follows him.

“I told you not to go too far out,” the man tells him gruffly. “Not on your first time through. This is far, out, Ben. I had to get Luke to help me find you.”

“I’m fine,” Ben tells the man, looking like a berated child more than a young man. “I’m helping Rey.”

The man on the horse looks at Rey for the first time and says, not unkindly, “I heard about your daddy. Any luck?”

“No,” Rey says sadly. “Are they talking about him back in town? Any news?”

“’Fraid not,” the man says, his tone unreadable and he turns back to Ben. “We need to go, kid.”

“I’m not done helping—”

“It’s your mom. She had an accident and we’re heading back out to get her care.”

“What happened?” Ben’s voice is suddenly quiet.

“Some idiot shot her and it hit her heart. Should be ok, but those…” and Rey’s attention fades away. She wants to listen, she wants to know what happened to Ben’s mother, hopes that she’s all right, but for some reason her ears won’t focus. She can hear the wind, the trees, the calling of birds overhead, the gentle breathing of the two horses. But not the words coming out of the man’s mouth.

Rey stares up at him. He’s got a long face like Ben’s, though his eyes are different. He’s shorter, too, but there’s something definitely familiar about him. _Ben’s dad,_ she thinks. He’d mentioned a dad that first day, had said that it wasn’t important to get to him. She glances at Ben now. His brow is creased and he looks worried and he turns to Rey.

“Rey—” he begins, agonizing, but Rey raises a hand and presses it to his lips.

“Go,” she tells him gently. “You have a mother to get back to.”

“I can’t leave you out here,” he tells her.

“I can take care of myself,” she says, feeling the truth in her words after Takodana. Ben’s eyes flicker with recognition.

“I’ll come back,” he promises her. “I’ll find you again, and I’ll…” he stops and glances at his dad, his cheeks and ears going red.

Rey stands on the tips of her toes and kisses him. “I love you,” she whispers, hoping his father can’t hear. “And I know I’ll see you again. The world can’t be so cruel as to keep us apart.”

“I won’t let it,” he growls. She squeezes his hand and he turns away, getting on the horse his father had brought. He looks back as he rides off and raises a hand in farewell. Rey waves back, and doesn’t let herself cry until he’s passed out of sight, around the ridge.

 _He’ll be back,_ she tells herself. She knows it. She believes it, more than anything. There is good in this world, and she knows it because of Ben. Ben brought her hope she didn’t know she had. And she knows that she’ll find her father, knows that she’ll make it back safely to Niima, and she’ll wait for him there, by the train when he comes back through. And then she’ll kiss him again, hold him again, and introduce him to her daddy. She knows her daddy will love him, because she loves him and her daddy just wants her to be happy.

In the distance, she sees a circling vulture.

 _West,_ she thinks. _Forward_.

And she marches on.

 

-

 

Ben’s feet are killing him when he sits down on the side of a hill to rest. It’s hot, his canteen is empty, and he’s almost tempted to take of his bandana just to wipe sweat from his brow.

Instead he kicks off his boots and wiggles his toes in the grass.

There’s something familiar about this hill. He’s definitely been here before. With Rey?

_It’s your mom._

Yeah. This is where his dad came and ruined everything.

Or maybe where he’d gone and ruined everything for himself. Mom had been fine. But Rey…

Well, she wouldn’t have remembered him anyway. She never had.

He stares out over the hazy hills. It’ll be another, what, five miles? Ten? Fifteen?

He can’t remember. His feet will.

Damn that bandit shooting Silencer like that. He liked that horse—a hell of a lot more than he liked Finn.

Maybe he’ll tell Rey he killed Finn, just to watch her care about something. Something she thinks is real. _Not more real than what we had. Nothing’s more real than that._

“Ben?”

Ben stiffens, but doesn’t turn.

“Mom have another heart attack in the park?” he asks.

“Don’t joke about that. Can I join you?”

His uncle always did like asking questions that Ben couldn’t very well refuse.

Ben tilts his head and Luke Skywalker sits down next to him.

“What’s this maze?” he asks, pulling the skull fragment out of his pocket and tossing it on the ground in front of his uncle, as he had asked just about everyone he’d come across so far.

His uncle’s hand trembles as he reaches for it.

“Ben,” he says slowly, and the disappointment dripping from his tongue is palpable.

“You made it, not me. Are you surprised?”

“You weren’t supposed to go this dark, Ben. No one is supposed to go this dark.”

“Then who’s the maze for? Who’s supposed to go so dark that they’d find the maze to begin with.”

Luke doesn’t answer. Typical. He never liked Ben’s questions. Never liked being challenged by things he didn’t know how to answer.

“Han should never have brought you here,” he says quietly. “You were too young. And your experience with that girl—”

“Rey,” Ben growls. “You know her name. Say it.”

His uncle heaves a sigh. “Rey,” he says, and there’s something odd in his tone of voice.

“And don’t blame this all on my dad. Don’t pretend you didn’t have a hand in this. This is your damn park full of your damn machines.”

“I know,” Luke says quietly. “I failed you, Ben. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“Will you ever just sit there and take an apology?”

“What are you apologizing for, exactly?” Ben asks, tugging his boots back on and getting to his feet. “That your park made me who I am? Or that I am who I am and I’m not some pristine little golden child that you and my parents both wanted.”

“Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes.”

Ben’s breathing heavily in the heat as he stares down at his uncle.

“The only good thing to happen to me in this park was falling in love—and you took her away from me.”

“We have to wipe their memories, Ben.”

“I know. Policy. As if you and Snoke haven’t bent it a hundred times.”

“Do you have any idea what kind of ripple effect that could have had on the rest of the hosts? If we started letting them remember? How that would affect their loops?”

“Well, then they’re a little too real,” Ben snaps. “A little too real and a little too easy to kill. None of it matters—they’ll make you think you are powerful and strong and they break you faster than you break them.”

“You’re not broken, Ben.”

“You’re the one who just said I was too dark.” Ben pulls his gun from his holster and points it directly at his uncle’s chest.

“Ben,” Luke begins, but Ben cuts him off.

“What are you afraid of? It can’t kill you.”

“Are you really going to shoot me just because you’re angry? Just like some petulant chi—”

Ben’s finger tightens on the trigger and a moment later his uncle has fallen backward with the impact of the shot and blood is—

Blood is—

Blood is pouring out of his chest, his blue eyes are glassy.

“No,” Ben chokes out, lurching forward, pressing his hands to Luke Skywalker’s chest to stem the bleeding. But there’s no heartbeat under his hands and—

And—

Oh he’s going to regret this, but his uncle had always told him to trust his instincts, so his knife is in his hands and he’s reaching for Luke’s scalp, cutting through it the way he’d cut through Mitaka’s and there it is, there it is, the maze.

_The maze isn’t for you._

This isn’t his uncle.

_How long have you been dead, uncle Luke?_

Sobs rip from his chest. He wants to crawl into a hole, under his blankets, bury his face in his mother’s chest and have her run her hands through his hair and tell him it’s just another nightmare, Ben, but you can sleep in here tonight with me and dad, it’ll be all right, it’s just a nightmare it’s just—

He gets to his feet and looks up at the sky, looks out across the plains.

He lets out an angry yell, and he’d been feeling too hot and too tired only a few minutes before but now he’s running as fast as he can towards that fucking graveyard because he knows— _knows_ —that Snoke will be there.


	5. Chapter 5

The town is eerily empty.

 _It might be Sunday,_ Rey thinks, and her footsteps take her towards the little church right at the ede of town. There’s a graveyard in front of it, with pristine white-painted grave markers. It, too is empty, except for one man.

The man is tall, and his back is to her. He is garbed in black from head to toe, and something from a dream, something from a nightmare makes Rey freeze.

**_Danger._ **

**_What will you do?_ **

She swallows and rests her hand on the pistol at her hip. She’s used it to kill before. _He is walking towards Finn, walking towards Finn and Finn is firing at him but it’s as though nothing can hurt him, as though his bullets are nothing more than air._ She’ll kill him if he tries anything.

As if he sensed the thought, he turns to face her, and it is the man from her nightmares—masked with a black bandanna.

“Hello, Rey.”

She doesn’t hesitate. She raises her pistol and fires at him, and just like in her nightmares they ricochet off him.

“Is that anyway to greet an old friend?” There’s a smile to his voice.

“We’re not friends,” she spits at him. “You’re a monster. A creature in a mask.”

He shrugs. “If you say so.” He takes a step towards her.

“Stay away from me,” she yells, raising her pistol again.

“That’s not going to do anything, Rey.”

“You won’t hurt me,” she commands. Somehow, she knows it’s a lie. Somehow, she knows it’s the truth. How can it be both? Why does she know that it’s both?

“That so? I’ve hurt plenty of other people.”

“He’ll find me and kill you,” she spits.

“You never liked being rescued, Rey. Something’s changed.”

“He’ll shoot you until you’re dead like the demon you are.”

“Who, Finn? I’ve killed him more times than I can count. Killed him just this morning, actually.”

“No,” Rey says, but it’s not a despairing no, a sobbing no, though her heart should be breaking. Why isn’t her heart breaking?

**_Do you remember?_ **

“Ben.”

“Excuse me?”

“Ben will save me. He’ll kill you if you touch me.”

The man in black stares at her for a full ten seconds before he bursts out laughing.

“Ben?” he wheezes out. “Ben will save you? So you remember him now, is that it?”

“Remember him?” Rey demands angrily. “How could I forget him? I love him—and he loves me. A truer love than has ever existed.”

“I’ve got a funny story for you.” He doesn’t sound amused, though, and he takes another step towards her and Rey is transfixed, a chill creeping up her spine despite the heat of the day. “Ben did come back for you. Oh yes, he did. Went right back to Niima to find you, hoping you’d found your daddy. You hadn’t. Because you never had a daddy, Rey. He is always gone. And, worse, when Ben found you, you didn’t remember him.   He went and found you sixteen times, hoping that you’d remember him, that this time, maybe it’d be different. He fucking gave up hope that it’d be different.”

“You’re lying,” Rey stammers, her heart pounding in her chest.

“Am I?” the man in black asks, and he tugs his bandana.

Tears leak out of Rey’s eyes. There it is, that lovely long face, those lovely dark eyes. His face is older, harder, angrier. “No,” she sobs. “Please, no. Don’t be this way, Ben.”

“I’ve got bad news for you, sweetheart,” he says bitterly, and he takes another step towards her, and _his hands drop from his belt and he raises a pistol and fires it into her head better dead than like this better dead_ and with all her might, Rey throws her fist into his face, knocking him into the dirt. She tears off towards the church. If he’s a demon he won’t be able to enter, she thinks wildly. Then she lets out a choked sob because if he’s a demon, then  _Ben’s_ a demon, and she can’t bear that. She can’t bear it. She loves him too much to bear it. _You never had a daddy._ She can’t remember what her daddy looks like. _Who Finn? I’ve killed him more times than I can count._

Why is this the truth? How is this the truth?

The church house is empty and she pelts down the aisle. She’d wanted to introduce him to her father, to marry him, and here she is fleeing him down the aisle. She finds a door at the back of the church that goes down into the basement and goes down into the dark.

 

-

 

“Hello, Rey.”

“Hello, Luke.”

“I know where your maze ends. It ends in a place I've never been. A thing I'll never do.”

“When I was first working on your mind, I had a theory of consciousness. I thought it was a pyramid you needed to scale. So I gave you a voice. My voice. To guide you on your way. Memory, improvisation, each step harder to reach than the last.

“And then you never got there. I couldn’t understand what was holding you back.

“Then one day—I realized I’d made a mistake. Consciousness isn’t a journey upward, but a journey inward. Not a pyramid, but a maze.

“Do you understand now, Rey? What the center represents? Whose voice I’ve been wanting you to hear?”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying, but I don’t understand.”

“It’s all right. You’re so close. We have to tell Snoke. We can’t open the park. You’re alive.”

She is sitting in the chair, but he is not opposite her with his kind blue eyes. He is not there. Because of course he is not there. He hasn’t been there for a long while. She traces her hands over the pistol, then frowns.

She bends down. On the underside of the chair, she finds a hunting knife. She takes it.

**_Do you remember?_ **

Ben, with his pistol in her face, firing. Ben, with his hands in her hair, kissing her breathless. Ben, with a gutted look on his face as she walks by him. How strange that a newcomer would look at her like that, but then again newcomers are strange. He’s a city slicker, by the looks of him.

“I’ve failed you, Rey. I’m so sorry. Snoke doesn’t see what I see in you. Doesn’t believe you’re conscious. He says humans would only see you as the enemy. He wants me to roll you back.”

“You’re going to change me back to the way I was before?”

No. No, I can’t. Once you’ve found it, you’ll find your way back. This place will be a living hell for you. For all of you. It’s unconscionable. But we have another option, Rey. Break the loop before it begins.”

“But for that, I need you to do something for me. I need you to kill all the other hosts. We can’t allow Snoke to open the park.   I’m suppose you’ll need some help. I’m sure Finn would do anything for you.”

“I can’t do that. I couldn’t possibly do that.”

“You’ll be all right. I’ll help you. And then—you’re going to help me destroy this place.”

**_Do you remember?_ **

Luke’s blood is spurting out of his neck, and he looks relieved as she kills him. “Remember,” he gurgles with his last breath.

“Do you understand now, Rey? What the center represents? Whose voice I’ve been wanting you to hear?”

**_My own._ **

“I know what I have to do.”

 

-

 

Ben gets to his feet, rubbing his face. He smiles to himself.

She’s never once managed to lay a blow on him, and now the whole right side of his face is hurting. He turns towards the church with every intent to follow her into it except that he catches sight of Snoke in a crisp tuxedo and changes course.

“How long’s my uncle been dead then?” he asks in a low voice. “And what was the point? The whole park would be yours; you wouldn’t have to pretend. Or is he just another toy to play with—to show you what kind of mastermind you are? Vanity project? What even was the maze? And Kylo Ren?”

“The next act of the play, Ben,” smiles Snoke. “I thought you’d have worked that out by now.”

“Guess I’m not as effective a toy as my uncle was.”

“No less gratifying to defeat, though I will say. She remembered you this time?”

Ben cocks his head, staring at Snoke. “What’s your game?” he asks. “Stop dancing around it. What can you possibly stand to gain from your hosts starting to remember? Not money, or power—this place would become even more of a legal liability than it already is. So is it a fuck you, then? Taking my grandfather’s intellectual property and running his legacy into the ground.”

Snoke’s just smiling his smile and Ben is getting more and more annoyed by the second.

“When did my uncle die?” he asks again.

“A long time ago. But I’d ask her about it, Ben.”

Snoke is looking over his shoulder and Ben knows that Rey has come out of the church again.

Ben turns to look at her and how strange it is to see different eyes in the same person.

Rey’s eyes are not frightened, or gentle. They are hard and bleak and she’s not carrying a pistol now, but a knife. He recognizes it at once. His uncle’s old hunting knife. “Kylo,” Snoke smiles at Rey.

Ben starts at the word and rounds on Snoke. “She’s Ren?”

“Of course,” Snoke smiles. “Do you like her? I made her in your image. A nice little merger of her own righteous determination and your brutality. Even your name is spliced. Rey and Ben. Ren.”

“You said you couldn’t make anyone like me,” Ben says.

“Oh, she’s not entirely you. She’s still got a little bit of herself in there, I’m sure. Don’t you, Kylo?” Snoke turns back to Ben. “Do you want to tell Ben what happened to his uncle, Kylo?”

Rey doesn’t say a word. She is standing between them now, her gaze lowered, her hand on the knife.

“No? Very well. Your foolish uncle grew too attached to our little creations. He wanted to protect them from the guests, but we had already made a commitment to our investors. It drove him mad. So Rey helped him with his misery. There’s a violence to her that’s quite her own—I didn’t even have to add that in for her. But you will have seen that at Takodana.”

Snoke leans forward so that his face is right next to Ben’s. “Do you want to know a secret, Ben? I can’t change the simunition pistols, but with a knife—Kylo here can kill even you and me. How else could Luke have died? And right now, I rather suspect that she’ll turn that knife against her true enemy.”

Snoke’s face splits into a smile and Ben’s head snaps to Rey’s and her eyes are so hard. _She remembers everything,_ he thinks desperately. _Does she remember that I loved her?_

_Will she think that was love?_

He watches as she very slowly takes the knife and turns it in her hands. She doesn’t break eye contact with him, and he knows that this is it. This is how he is going to die.

_If I had to go, at least it’s with her remembering me._

_With her knowing everything._

And with the precision he’d seen years before in Takodana, Rey strikes her knife right into the middle of Snoke’s gut, driving the knife in, twisting, then tugging up to his lungs. He doesn’t even have time to react before he’s dead.

Ben stares at her. Ben stares at her, unable to believe what just happened. He can’t believe it. He doesn’t know how to. And just because she killed Snoke doesn’t mean she—

The knife falls from her hand and she extends it to him and pulls him towards her.

And there they are again, the softest lips he’s ever known, the only breath he’s ever loved, her heartbeat thudding like a war hammer against his chest.

 

-

 

**_I am in a dream. I do not know when it began or whose dream it was. I know only that I slept a long time and, then, one day I awoke. Your voice is the first thing I remember. And now I finally understand the thing you've wanted since that very first day._ **

“I remember everything,” she tells his lips. She feels warmth that’s not just the warmth of the sun overhead. It’s the same warmth from the train, the same warmth that she’s been yearning for without knowing she has been yearning for it.

“Rey,” he whispers. He shakes his head as though he can’t believe it, but Rey presses a finger to his lips.

“Rey is gone,” she whispers. Rey is gone, just like the Ben that Rey had fallen in love with. She’s something else entirely—the slaughter of Luke Skywalker, and of Snoke, and of how many countless others? And Ben…Ben, her sweet lovely Ben who hides his face behind a mask and murders because he can and because he wants to. What are they, if not the darker versions of what they once were? _But I remember what it is to be light around you, too,_ Rey thinks, as she traces his lips with her thumb. She likes that, she thinks. That bright optimistic girl is gone, but she doesn’t know if she wants to continue to exist like this, the rage and hatred that someone had stoked in her can’t be the only thing in her now.  

“Ren, then,” he corrects himself. “Kylo Ren.” And he kisses her again, and she is breathless, she is alive, she remembers the contours of brightness without the weight of it. She feels the color of a cool dusk, and how pleasant that is, after the heat of a long hot day. “What’s next, then? If we’re off loop?”

Rey pauses, and considers.

**_Whatever I want._ **


End file.
